Hnnnnn
by Iwilo
Summary: Life is about the little things. Comment. Tell me about your "piles".


"Hnnnnn." That's his pensive "I'm thinking" sound. He had an odd, nasally way of speaking and an accent that gives the average broken-orcish-speaking troll a headache. He can hardly speak Zandalari, the common troll language. If his orcish is badly mangled, his trollish is grotesque and beyond heinously mauled. "Hnnh." That's more of a "Hmph," of quiet interest in Fyve-speak. He nods absently as he holds the skull up to the light.

Fyve huddles in his self-made hideaway, one of many. He is shirtless and wears only thin black pants. His weapon belt is loosened a bit for comfort, so that he can crouch and maneuver in the small space, wickedly sharp daggers dangling at boyishly slim hips. That's the only time the word boyish can really be applied in the case of Fyve. The troll would otherwise be best described as monstrous, pugnacious, a savage brute, the list could go on forever, none of it particularly flattering.

He'd be silly looking, if he weren't so dangerous. He looks like a child's drawing of a troll, with the humongous oversized tusks that jut straight out with a gentle upward curve of a banana. No child would be pleased to see this drawing come to life. Fyve is not only physically ugly, with the banana tusks and heavy brow, the mean little deep-set eyes and the long, pointed hook-nose; the way he carries himself is just as feral in aspect. He has a certain reptilian quality, the way his head swings around fluidly on the long, muscular neck. His ears twitch at every sound.

His mannerisms are just innately bestial. He keeps his hunched shoulders drawn up around his ears even further when he is eating, the thin fur that runs up the upper half of his spine rising if anyone or anything happens near. It's like watching a starving dog picking at much-awaited scraps while keeping a wary eye on its surroundings. A MEAN starving dog. You'd have to be an idiot to take away the bowl, even after it is empty. It doesn't take a lot of consideration to come to the conclusion that you shouldn't fuck with Fyve's food. Not that anyone would likely want to watch Fyve eat, anyway. If his eating manners aren't nasty enough, some of the things he decides to put in his stomach certainly are.

But Fyve isn't eating right now. He's in his "tinkerin'" mode, though he doesn't consider what he's doing to be tinkering, either. Tinkering involves metal and heat and schematics with all of the words crossed out. Tinkering is for "da technologies".

No, if Fyve's current activity must have a name; it could be called art, or maybe collecting. There is certainly a collection here. Most of it is recognizable as humanoid bones, beads, gems and coins. Some of it is not so nameable, but it looks unarguably dead. There is a large boulder that dominates the center of the "work space". Set in the center of a tight naturally walled-in circle of trees and assorted jungle plants, the boulder is nearly a meter across and has been painted with various stick figures. They appear to be female, if the lopsided, circular "assets" they possess are any indication. One of the many things the renderings all have in common is that their breasts are as grotesquely oversized as the troll's tusk. They have the primitive hormonally-induced sloppy and doggedly repetitive quality of a horny teenager's frustrated sketchings. "This is the thing I want to see," they seem to say. And they probably say it in a nasal growl, with an amusing dose of speech impediment.

However, the paint appears quite dry and Fyve isn't particularly frustrated looking. The expression he wears is one of calm, quiet interest, and it looks weird on his pugnacious face… Almost sad, in a vague, indefinable way. "Hnnn…" he stares at the skull that rests upon his right palm, his left hand squeezing his left tusk rhythmically. "Wha I shou put?" he asks the skull, which smiles back mutely and looks at him through dead sockets that have had mismatched gems, one green and one amber with red-brown flecks, jammed inside. The dark red bits match Fyve's own deep red eye-color though he doesn't make it a point to look at his own reflection, and so doesn't recognize the similarity.

In the tree-filtered light, his eyes appear to be more brown than red, shaded as they are by his heavy brow. They are alive and shining; possibly because he's not gone out and gotten drunk today, though that is an unavoidable eventuality. In this moment, his eyes radiate a sense of quiet peace, if one were to ignore the rest of his face, which isn't really designed to match the mood. He blinks slowly, the light reflected from the gems making points of color next to his pupils. His breathing is slow and even as he regards the skull in his hand.

His adam's apple bobs as he swallows; his lower lip moving up and down slightly, as if he were speaking to himself without sound. With a slight nod, he releases his left tusk and lets the broad, square-cut claws of the two fingers and thumb poke around in the nearest pile of shiny things. His ears follow his hand, though his gaze remains on the skull. He likes the metallic and stone clinks that his calloused fingers are causing. After a pause, he glances down and chooses a strip of scrap metal, left over from some long-exploded project. The strip is six inches long and only an inch side, dented all over but still quite shiny. He places the skull carefully on the ground, grabs both ends of the metal strip, and bends it around the end of one tusk, pressing it with his thumbs to give it a round shape.

Removing the metal strip; he grunts as it sticks to the tusk and makes a pinging sound as he tugs it away, he again picks up the skull and holds the strip in his left hand, the skull in his right, as if comparing the two. There's a vibration that slowly becomes a low buzz. Fyve doesn't know it, but it's the sound he makes when he's concentrating and content. It comes on every exhale, like a sigh but deep inside of him, like a quiet growl. He's so accustomed to the sound that his ever-alert ears fail to even pick it up. The transparent fuzzy crest of fur on his upper spine lies smoothed-down against pale blue the skin, becoming near-invisible.

He's been crouching, knees drawn up close and spread, balanced on the balls of his feet. Now he folds his legs tight, allows his weight to shift so that he falls back onto his butt. He makes a sudden "hnnt" sound as he lands, before resuming that unconscious buzzing growl. The grass here is tall and soft, where he hasn't torn it out to make room for the assorted piles that surround him. It feels good.

An errant blade of grass tickles his lower back, just above his belt, and he reaches back to swipe at it with the metal strip. The fur on his upper spine twitches slightly and flattens again. Fyve takes the strip and begin to press it against the skull, on the smooth spot just above the thing's right brow-bone. He slides it back and forth but it only leaves behind vague scratches that glitter slightly. The metal is too soft. Dropping the metal on his leg, he turns and scratches the back of his neck with one finger as his eyes search the immediate vicinity.

His own brow raises momentarily in recognition as he hand shoots out, fingers scrabbling against the denuded dirt as he leans far forward, the fingers of his right hand tightening on the skull automatically. The item he now seeks is a knife, an old, dulled one that rests atop a pile of similarly defunct discarded weapons. Fyve settles back, holds the knife comfortably in a hand that is very used to the weight of a weapon, and begins to carve a pair of lines into the skull. They run at a slight diagonal, are a little over an inch wide and if they were to be completed, the lines would run from the corner of the right eye socket, which is on Fyve's left side, to slightly past the skull's forehead. He digs the worn but tough blade point in and saws back and forth until the cuts are a quarter-inch into the bone. Tossing the blade aside without another glance, he picks up the rounded metal strip and pushes it into place. His breath catches in his throat and the humming growl pauses as he finally gets the tricky adornment to stay. He swallows; the sound starts anew, a bit louder now. It's the quiet sound of victory.

Fyve looks at the skull with the gem eyes and the giant metal band shoved in it. He looks at the decorated boulder in front of him. His eyes go back to the skull and he sniffs, pushes himself to his feet with a bizarre, fluid grace. He places the skull in a worn-out depression on top of the boulder.

As he stares at the skull-and-boulder arrangement, he pushes out his lower lip with his tongue. His left hand begins to reach for his tusk again, but pauses and changes direction. He blinks and pushes the skull with his finger, turning it a hair. He grunts and settles back into a crouch, his hand finally finding the tusk.

Piles of treasure surround the pale blue troll with the mean face and the banana tusks. There are gems, bones, decorated rocks, broken weapons, gold and silver, even what appear to be dried thumbs. He breathes slowly in and out. The growling buzz fades so gradually that it might never have been there.

He leans forward, puts the heels of his hands over his eyes, presses his face firmly against them, and stays that way.

* * *

End

I don't own WoW or anything of Blizzard's. Fyve is my character. Please don't use him without permission. Fyve currently resides on Moon Guard realm. His user name is "Fybe". It isn't much, but this short is dedicated to my new friend who goes by the name "Five Shades" on Fanfiction dot net. I was having a shit day and she gave me back my growling hum.

~I'wilo


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